Local News & Events

Development Proposal at
1844 Bloor Street
Daniels Corporation is proposing to build a
14-storey condominium building with 378 units in the
block between Pacific Avenue and Oakmount Road along
Bloor Street West. A building design that the
majority in the community do not agree with.

Sunnyside Bike Park
Plans for a bike park between Lakeshore Blvd. and
the Gardiner Expressway just below High Park are in
full swing. To learn more and view initial design
proposal from Jay Hoots of Hoots Inc. click read
more below.

Development on Roncesvalles
Will the newly-admirable Roncesvalles Avenue we know
and love today exist in ten years? Or will the City
facilitate a future wind tunnel of six storey
buildings along the west side of Roncesvalles?

Howard Park Condo
Development
Though not in our catchment, neighbours east of
Roncesvalles have expressed concerns about a
development application for lands on Howard Park
Avenue between Roncesvalles and Dundas West.

High Park Residents'
Association (HPRA)

Roncesvalles Avenue has attracted considerable
change over the past five years.

As residents, we participated in debate and design
efforts prior to these changes, lived through myriad
challenges during a haphazard implementation, and
based on continuing feedback, are still attempting
to make peace with elements or compromises of the
result.

In any case, our newly designated 'slow street' has
retained its essential character, as an eclectic
assortment of predominantly commercial and
multi-family uses on its east side, with varied
single-family and multi-family residences on its
west side.

The City of Toronto is proposing to permit
small-scale retail, service, and office uses on the
west side of Roncesvalles between Marmaduke and
Marion, a stretch the City refers to as 'currently
designated as Neighbourhoods'.

At its best, this proposal offers area residents a
welcome stake in the ground - permitting quiet use
in keeping with existing built forms and structures,
and forestalling the community's need to fight a
series of development applications.

It should be noted, however, that the City refers to
the area north of Bloor and west of Keele 'currently
designated as Neighbourhoods'.

As recently as January of this year, over 800 area
residents temporarily convinced City Councillors
from approving a 350+ unit, twelve storey building
as a 'neighbour' to single-family residences there -
an unfortunate example as to how the City's Planning
methodologies often lead to contentious battles at
the Ontario Municipal Board, rather than aspiring to
the cost-saving and development-guideline-surety
borne of co-operation between the City and local
communities (i.e. the Bloor Dundas Avenue Study).

Will the newly-admirable,
New York Times-lauded
Roncesvalles Avenue we know and love today exist in
ten years?

Or will the City facilitate a future wind tunnel of
six storey (or taller) buildings along the west side
of Roncesvalles?

Following years of lackadaisical City enforcement of
its own land use bylaws, a highly contentious battle
amongst residents to accommodate bylaw changes
necessary to permit the operation of a music school,
and the realization that mid-rise development
guidelines imperiled the future of Roncesvalles
Avenue as local residents have known it over the
past 100 years, the HPRA’s Executive made a request
in 2010 of Councillor Gord Perks, that the City
facilitate a discussion whereby land use with
respect to single family residences on the west side
of Roncesvalles would be treated with consistency in
the future.

In March 2012, Councillor Gord Perks announced the
Roncesvalles West Land Study.

In doing so, Councillor Perks noted that one of the
reasons he was doing so, was to address “the number
of developers who approach my office, looking to
develop properties on the west side of
Roncesvalles”.

When asked by area resident association heads about
what developers were asking for, no feedback was
forthcoming, which led many to believe that the
Councillor hadn’t been approached at all, but
instead, sought to press the community to adopt
creeping commercial uses (i.e.
the City Meeting Notice’s “small-scale retail”)
as the thin edge of a wedge to encourage development
on the west side of Roncesvalles between Marmaduke
and Marion.

Throughout the meeting, attendees voiced their
preferences for the status quo, belittled City
attempts to justify “past exceptions being provided
to owners” as the reason why current land use
provisions required changing (e.g. “you granted
these exceptions, and now you want us to believe
that what you’re seeking is protection from
yourself?”),and offered tangible reasons as to why
permitting ‘small-scale retail’ (as mentioned in the
City’s Notice for the meeting) would lead to
unacceptable traffic congestion and parking
concerns.

Moreover, at least three residents cited specific
instances of the current Councillor’s after-the-fact
accommodation of exceptions.

The
City’s Roncesvalles West Study minutes for this
meeting attempt to characterize resident sentiment
as “some members of the public expressed support for
no changes to the Zoning at all”, when in fact,
‘keeping the status quo’ represented an overwhelming
majority of resident input, both at the meeting, and
since.

It would have been more accurate to state that “some
members of the public suggested modernizing the list
of professional services as being the only change
worth discussing”.

By way of illustrating the City’s method of
operating, the reader is advised to note that north
of Bloor along Oakmount, a City-designated dividing
line exists between lands deemed (single-family
residential) “Neighbourhood” and “Apartment
Neighbourhood”.

What’s happening there, is a short-sighted,
spineless City represented by development-friendly
Councillors inviting proposals to build at heights
four times the former limit, densities five times
the former limit, with the added insult of residents
and their families being
attacked by glass walls (‘fritted’ or otherwise)
while on their neighbouring single-family
properties.

This is being done under the guise of “necessary
intensification”, which exposes the City’s lie in
claiming that the “Neighbourhood” designation
represents a significant brake on ‘undesirable
development’ of adjacent lands.

The above said, it is reasonable to conclude that
any “Change/Update” in the existing land use for the
west side of Roncesvalles more likely represents a
further opportunity for the City to compromise the
quiet and safe enjoyment of those who own or reside
in single-family residences on, or close to, the
west side of Roncesvalles.

These points weren’t lost on those attending a
Roncesvalles-Macdonell Residents Association
(RMRA)-facilitated meeting on May 29th, where
area residents living on both sides of Roncesvalles
were unanimously in favour of ‘keeping the status
quo’ - excepting that part of the status quo where
the local Councillor and the City’s Legal department
continue to ignore or accommodate land use
exceptions against existing bylaws, and the wishes
of the community’s residential landowners.